In the 1980s St Ives art was celebrated by two important exhibitions in England (at the Tate Gallery in 1985) and Japan (a touring exhibition in 1989), in both of which the final date was taken as 1975, the year that saw the deaths of Barbara Hepworth, Roger Hilton and Bryan Wynter. But many St Ives artists, including Terry Frost, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Denis Mitchell, Paul Feiler, John Wells and Patrick Heron, continued to live and work in west Cornwall.
Some work remained firmly based in the locality, including the remarkable images of Bryan Pearce, while other artists moved on after a fruitful period in the area, a notable example being the Irish artist Tony O’Malley, who returned to Ireland after two decades in Cornwall. Since 1993, some artists have chosen to return to St Ives, including some, like Sandra Blow and Trevor Bell, who spent time in St Ives earlier in their careers.
Today many younger artists work in west Cornwall. Some are directly associated with the leading St Ives figures of older generations, some simply have a new commitment to living and working in the region alongside new groups and in partnership with new galleries.
In the context of both St Ives' rich artistic tradition and the diversity of contemporary artistic practice in west Cornwall, the role of Tate St Ives embraces a wide range of different activities. The Gallery actively builds on its presentations of the Tate's collection of modern art in Cornwall, through new acquisitions and by stimulating responses to the displays through its Education and Projects programmes. Special exhibitions provide an opportunity to highlight the work of an individual artist or group of artists, while an artist-in-residence scheme allows the Gallery to promote and often commission new works of contemporary art conceived in relation to the St Ives context.
The Gallery's work includes projects with younger artists and with visitors to the region; collaborations with public galleries elsewhere in the UK and abroad; and major regional projects such as the St Ives International which brings a renewed emphasis to Cornwall's place in the international art world. Through a combination of all these activities, Tate St Ives aims to present a picture of art in the region which highlights both its rich and diverse history, and the continuation of this legacy through new developments in contemporary art.